RSM Councilwoman Anne Figueroa Misrepresentations (Updated)
On September 23rd I posted a story to The Patch that detailed some obviously misleading and outright incorrect information provided by RSM Councilwoman Anne Figueroa for her political campaign, but she was not happy about it, so she complained to the Patch and got the article taken down as well as furiously trying to correct the misleading information she’d been touting for years. So what follows is the original article with updates inserted in italics.
RSM Councilwoman Anne Figueroa has some questions to answer. When Anne Figueroa ran for Rancho Santa Margarita city council in 2018, part of what she touted on her campaign website which is echoed on her business website was that she is an award-winning interior designer and Allied Member ASID member, but its phrased in such a way that it reads as though she won some award with them, you can see in this screenshot:
So I reached out to ASID about her membership, and this is the response that I got:
If you can’t see it, it says that they don’t have her as a member. Going to her Linkedin profile is even more perplexing as you can see in this screenshot:
That is the only information she has, and she put in her resignation from Assemblyman Broughs office at the end of June 2019 and this is still listed as of September 23, 2019. I even emailed her about it a couple of months ago that she should update it, but Anne stopped returning emails 6 months ago. (This remains unchanged as of October 4, 2019, again misrepresenting her background). Update: Oct 7, 2019 — she finally removed Assemblyman Brough from her Linkedin profile. I had emailed her months ago about it, but I’m glad this article helped her realize her professional credentials and Linkedin profile were out of date and she took care of it.
Because of the original run of this article, Anne hurridly renewed her decade long lapsed membership in the ASID as you can see from this screenshot:
If you can’t read it, it says she just updated her membership last month, after my article ran. Why would Anne falsify her professional membership during an election? That is fraudulent, she was fully aware she wasn’t a member of the ASID but told people she was anyway.
Digging more into her campaign itself, remember, we also believe that the only reason that embroiled councilman Tony Beall was campaign central for Anne was to make sure he would have the votes to get Dove Canyon Plaza rezoned to residential, he put $3,100 into her campaign:
as well as ran her campaign from his house where she had her launch and fundraiser(s).
Anne spent nearly $21,000 on her campaign to get a part-time city council seat. That’s a lot of money for a job that pays less than $5,600 a year in salary, however, there is almost $20,000 in “other” compensation a year. She spent more than all of the six other people running for council combined, including the two incumbents. She spent more than anyone ever has to successfully win a seat for the RSM city council. What was so important that she get this seat? Given that the Dove Canyon Plaza rezone request kicked into full gear just weeks after she was sworn in has many people believing they are related.
Looking at the awards she talks about winning, none of those claims are links to anything, not screenshots, scans or the sites themselves. I tried looking them up in the history on some of those sites, but nothing was there. Are these real? They are all old, so it is hard to confirm now, but with the ASID assertion, then we start to wonder. We’d all like to know what the real story is.
The day after my original article ran, Anne added pictures of her physical awards to her Facebook page for her design company as you can see in this screenshot, but her business website still doesn’t show them. I appreciate that she answered this question and I want to make sure I note it:
Then when going for the OC GOP endorsement, Anne didn’t go but embroiled city councilman Tony Beall, who is currently facing both a recall and FPPC complaint, went on her behalf, the link is here but the relevant section is below:
Some interesting factoids from this. Mike Vaughn had decided not to run well in advance of his announcement and Anne was ready to run with the campaign website, a team and a fundraiser all ready to announce. This is just one of the games that get played when there are handpicked successors. The Bernie Sanders activist was not her top rival, that was just a typical scare tactic. I do appreciate that Tony supported what I’ve been saying for over a year, that the city’s long term financial health is at risk in part from the rising costs of law enforcement. The only way to deal with it is to raise revenue, which I’ve never seen the city council actually do anything about. Anne has been in office for nearly a year without a single signature issue or effort, despite her comments on building businesses during the election.
So we have to ask some questions here, what is actually true in Anne’s background and why did she want to be on the city council? Why is she making misleading statements about something so simple as being a member of ASID? What about the awards she says she has won? This is just the first in a series of articles on councilwoman Anne Figueroa and her issues.
